A lunar lander with an elevator? Here is what the future of space may look like

This week in space, companies outlined their visions for the future of the industry. Lockheed Martin is planning a massive lunar lander — with an elevator — that will carry astronauts. The company is also considering sending commercial payloads into deep space, creating a marketplace beyond low-Earth orbit. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is also working on a large lunar lander. It'll be called "Blue Moon."

This week in space, companies outlined their visions for the future of the industry. Lockheed Martin is planning a massive lunar lander — with an elevator — that will carry astronauts. The company is also considering sending commercial payloads into deep space, creating a marketplace beyond low-Earth orbit. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is also working on a large lunar lander. It'll be called "Blue Moon."

A lunar lander with an elevator, another one that shares a name with a popular beer, and a time when companies will send their products further into the cosmos than we’ve ever traveled before. That’s the future of space.

Theoretically, at least.

Those plans and more were outlined this week, as the top brass of the space industry met at the 69th annual International Astronautical Congress in Bremen, Germany.

There, Lockheed Martin and Blue Origin discussed their lunar lander plans, part of separate initiatives to land large payloads on the moon.

For Lockheed Martin, the decision is aligned with its work on NASA’s Gateway, a smaller International Space Station-like platform that the space agency plans to send into lunar orbit and use as a jumping-off point for missions to Mars. Lockheed’s design is also a response to NASA’s call for designs for small robotic landers — and the agency’s eventual goal of sending larger landers that carry astronauts to the moon’s surface.

So Lockheed went big — 62 metric tons.

For reference, that’s nearly the weight of the space shuttles when empty.

According to the company’s report detailing the plans, the single-stage lunar lander would be able to carry four astronauts from the Gateway to the moon for stays of up to two weeks. About 2,200 pounds of cargo could also take the ride on the lander.

Lockheed Martin principal space exploration architect Tim Cichan told technology outlet Ars Technica that the lander would also include a “lift elevator platform to get the crew down from the cabin to the surface.”

Courtesy of Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin's concept for a crewed lunar lander is a single stage, fully reusable system that would accommodate a crew of four and 2,000 pounds of payload to the moon.

Lockheed Martin's concept for a crewed lunar lander is a single stage, fully reusable system that would accommodate a crew of four and 2,000 pounds of payload to the moon. (Courtesy of Lockheed Martin)

The lander would also be reusable, able to visit multiple spots on the moon, and ultimately serve as a precursor for the kind of lander Lockheed envisions landing on the surface of Mars carrying humans.

“This lander could be used to establish a surface base, deliver scientific or commercial cargo and conduct extraordinary exploration of the moon,” explained Lisa Callahan, vice president and general manager of commercial civil space at Lockheed Martin Space, in a press release.

For now, the vision is years off. The Space Launch System rocket that will carry spacecraft Orion to deep space has suffered some schedule delays, with a test flight now on track for mid-2020, said John Shannon, Boeing’s SLS vice president and program manager on a call with reporters this week. The first people won’t visit the Gateway until 2024 at the earliest. Until then, the lander won’t be needed.

As part of those long-term plans, Lockheed is also considering the possibility of putting commercial payloads on Orion, the company said Friday, creating a marketplace beyond low-Earth orbit. Lockheed is soliciting ideas from organizations on the kinds of commercial payloads — in fields including science, art and entertainment, STEM and data — they could fly on Orion to and from the moon.

Lockheed is partnering with NanoRacks, a company that develops products for commercial utilization of space, and which has brought more than 700 payloads to the space station, on a model that could work for the moon and other deep space destinations. NASA has not yet signed on.

In the commercial sector, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has signed on to take part in a new kind of space race. The company said this week that it’s in the conceptual design phase for a “large lunar lander,” too.

It will be called Blue Moon.

Blue Origin, which has a growing presence on the Space Coast, will join Airbus and the European Space Agency in supporting a contest called “The Moon Race,” which was also announced at this week’s conference. The race is meant to stir up competition among companies with lunar plans.

The teams will have to propose a design next year and have five years to work on it before launching to the moon in 2024.

“Moving heavy industry from Earth into space is at the core of Blue Origin’s mission. The future will be better for our children – and our children’s children – if we use space to benefit life on Earth and enable millions of people to live and work in space,” Blue Origin said in a press release. “The next logical step in this path is a return to the Moon.”

Lockheed Martin's concept for a crewed lunar lander would have it flying from an orbiting platform called the Gateway to the surface of the moon.

Lockheed Martin's concept for a crewed lunar lander would have it flying from an orbiting platform called the Gateway to the surface of the moon. (Courtesy of Lockheed Martin)

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